The Bikes of Copenhagen #01

Wifealiciousness rummages through the basket on her Velorbis Victoria Classic for her keys.

We get alot of lovely emails and comments from readers about what bikes feature on the streets of Copenhagen, what bikes are cool and what bikes we can recommend. It's a tough subject. Mostly because the vast majority of bikes in Copenhagen aren't available abroad and are made by companies most of you have never heard of. Which is a shame, really. We're spoiled for choice in this bike-saturated market but in regions like North America only a few brands of European bikes are on the market.

Only a few Danish and Dutch brands are geared for export. The majority of the well-established companies are content with producing their bikes for the Northern European market. The brands that are exported to North America are generally very fine bikes and this is reflected in the price. They tend to market themselves for the upscale crowd. Fair enough, we say, but still a shame that so many cool bikes are inaccessible to bike culture lovers abroad.

We'll try to highlight some of the brands seen in Copenhagen in some upcoming posts, as well as cool brands from elsewhere in Europe.

GENERIC BIKE PLEASURE AND OLD SCHOOL RETRO-LOVING
There is a bike boom happening in Copenhagen, which seems to have started within the past five years. There are lot of new bikes on the bike lanes with new, bright colours and forms available after a century of black frames. We'll focus on bikes for ladies - the classic 'Bedstemor cykler', or 'Grandma bikes' as they're called in Danish.

By and large, however, most of the bikes are classic workhorses and many are of a rather generic nature.

I don't know what brand the bike above is but I see them, and others like them, all day long. They do the job. There are hundreds of bike shops in Copenhagen and many of them sell these basic "bedstemor cykler" - or Grandma bikes

Raleigh of China [formally of Nottingham] enjoy a strong prescence on the Copenhagen bike lanes. Vintage bike lovers will wet themselves standing on a busy street corner. Old Raleighs roll past in their scores and new Raleighs accompany them.

The bike above is a newish Raleigh. One of the travesties of the bike marketing world is that Raleigh produces classic models only for the Danish, German and Dutch market, leaving the rest of you out in the cold. You can see the contrast when looking at:
Raleigh's Danish website - elegant girl in heels on the front page - and then looking at
Raleigh's US website - agressive sports orientated image, or even
Raleigh's UK Website - outdoorsy weekend cyclists and loads of 'gear'.

On the Danish website there are 8 Ladies models under 'Shopping' and a classic retro model under Tourist De Luxe. On the US website there are four 'women's bikes', with only one resembling a normal everyday bike.

Old Raleighs are, in many ways, much lovelier. A bit of rust adds so much character. Many young women choose these trashed bikes as an image statement. They are coolest with heels and elegant clothes, for some reason. We have spotted a tendency to wear shoes by Louboutin while riding an old Raleigh.


It's not just old Raleighs, there are so many old brands that still do service on the bike lanes. In most cases, it's not about the bike, it's about the person riding it.

A fancy, expensive and wonderfully designed bike is cool, but you don't want people noticing the bike when they should be noticing you.

Christian Louboutin Meets Raleigh of Nottingham

I am quite baffled. Whenever I happen to see a pair of shoes by Louboutin, they are always treading the pedals of a beat up old Raleigh. One of life's great mysteries.

Roller & Coaster + Guest Photo From Lyon + Revolutionary La Rochelle

Gliding effortlessly towards the light, timing the change to green perfectly.

Once in awhile - not often enough for our liking - we discover a blog filled to the brim with fantastic wit and irony. In this case it's the Stuff White People Like Blog. At #61 - Bicycles. It's all brilliant satire, but I'm especially fond of this:

"... they love expensive Road Bikes and the accompanying spandex uniforms. This enables them to ride long distances and wear really tight clothes without any social stigmas. These types of riders will spend upwards of $5,000 on a bicycle and up to $400 on accessories, but will not ride to work. Perhaps because they cannot wear the spandex. It is important that you never question why someone needs a $5000 bicycle since the answer is always “performance."

A guest photo rolled into the inbox this morning:

I just stumbled upon Copenhagen Cycle Chic and I thought I'd send a couple of pics of my sweetheart looking bike-chic during our year using the Vélo'V bike-share program in Lyon, France. She finds the shots on your blog to be quite the inspiration, as do I, of course!, and is curious as to whether she is cycle-chic-worthy.

Sad to say, I send these pics to you from the cold climate of Edmonton in northern Alberta, Canada. Not one of the most bike-friendly towns....
Keep up the marvelous work! Matt.

Thanks to you and your sweetheart for thinking of us. There is no question in our minds that she qualifies for the much respected and sought after accolade of 'cycle chic'.

Matt's email reminded us of Lyon's bike share programme, Vélo'V. While much is written about the capital cities who have implemented bike sharing, like Paris, Barcelona and - coming soon - London, there are many cities in Europe that are already rolling. Lyon being one of them. It's a fair sized city, with almost 2 million inhabitants.


With all the hype about urban bike sharing, let's send a warm thought to the forgotten city that started it all, shall we? La Rochelle, on the French Atlantic coast [and favourite summer holiday destination for Wifealiciousness and I] had a legendary mayor back in the 1970's. He was quite the urban planning revolutionary. Inspired by Copenhagen, he created pedestrian streets in the city centre and, in 1974, he started a bike share programme.

He bought a load of yellow bikes and slapped them into racks by the harbour. The original idea was merely "take one, use it, bring it back." These days you can borrow them free for two hours if you leave some ID.

The programme never had, and still doesn't have, a fancy marketing name like ByCyklen, Velib, VeloV, SEVici or Bicing, which is probably why nobody knows about it. But La Rochelle was the first, so hats off to them.

Let's wrap todays cyclobabble with another photo of Copenhagen Cycle Chic, shall we?
Another fine example of matching your clothes with your bike.

History Repeating Itself

My friend Marie used this in her thesis about bike culture. This cartoon was used in America back in the 1930's, showing how the bicycle was seen as a way of kickstarting the American economy after the Depression. "Back to Prosperity!" "That Buy-cycle you're hearing so much about." "Circulating dollars."

While America isn't currently in a Depression, the dollar continues to fall and oil dependency is a big issue, not to mention environmental concerns. So it seems quite appropriate that this cartoon gets a revival.

And while we're on the History Repeating Itself subject:

Mrs Harcourt Williamson wrote this in The Complete Cyclist in 1897:
"The whole secret of a woman looking well on her bicycle lies in the cut and hang of her skirt." The best skirt of all, in her opinion, was made on the same lines as a habit, fitting the figure perfectly and cunningly stretched and shrunk. Once the skirt was successfully negotiated, the rest of the attire was simple:
"After all, however, the skirt is the thing, and once having this perfect, there is no reason why one should not wear an elaborate blouse and really smart hat on a fine day".

Indeed, Mrs Harcourt Williamson. Mr Colville-Andersen agrees with you. If only you knew how visionary your words were and how appropriate they are to this new generation of cycle chicsters.
Plucked from "The History of the Bicycle", by John Woodeforde, 1970.

Summer Memories

Summer Memories, originally uploaded by [Zakkaliciousness].

We were down by the harbour playing petanque with some friends and colleagues, after which we had a curry down the road.

Here, in the middle of a Nordic winter, images like these serve a noble cause. The shortest day of the year is behind us. There are three extra minutes of light each day in Copenhagen.

Summer is slowly, surely returning.

Waiting Raum

Waiting Raum, originally uploaded by [Zakkaliciousness].

Nothing beats a beat-up old Raleigh, a stylish outfit and a pensive moment waiting at a Copenhagen traffic light.